


Mother's Day

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Mother's Day, Original Character(s), Parentlock, Parents & Children, seb moran: minder of highly sensitive people, why do you people let me keep writing this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some family holidays Sebastian did not realize Jim Moriarty was going to insist they celebrate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mochroimanam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochroimanam/gifts).



> This is actually a fairly tame one; but Siobhan is a very strange, unsettling child and you should remember that.

It’s mid-March the year Siobhan comes to them, just after she turns eight, and Sebastian is dozing. Things feel safer now. She can be turned out into the yard, even with the chill still on the grass, to range over their land and into the woods an acre away, to come home distant-eyed and dirty-kneed. For her birthday in late February Jim had given her a pocketknife, small and sharp (with Seb’s doubt, and his reminder they’d agreed to wait, making no difference at all), so now she comes back with sliced-off bits of trees for Seb to identify along with stones with veins of crystal or imprinted fossils, flowers she doesn’t recognize, which Jim takes and helps her press between the leaves of their heaviest books. She doesn’t seem so much of a danger to herself, with pockets full of moss and pebbles. 

Lonely, maybe; and not quite human. But not a danger, and there are worse things than loneliness, Seb supposes. And she has them, the two of them to hold her together. 

Sebastian hears her come in, door opening almost without sound and then closing with a neat _click_ that Jim must have taught her to do when she wanted her presence known; he doesn’t open his eyes. She’s allowed to cook, within reason; tea, and eggs, and toast—more than Jim is, certainly. A few minutes go by, and he hears the low hiss of the kettle starting to boil; Siobhan pulls it off the stove before it can scream or even whistle, so Jim must be in the house. She can always tell, some sympathetic tie Seb doesn’t understand. 

Three and a half minutes pass, and then Siobhan comes through into the front room where Sebastian is stretched out on the couch, balancing three cups of tea on the smaller tray. Jim wanders after her, carrying the sugar and looking faintly put out.

Seb comes fully awake, though he doesn’t sit up or do anything except open his eyes and accept the tea from his daughter. She grins at him, a half-curl of mouth that reminds him of Jim and, in the way she catches and then gently, purposefully releases his gaze, of himself. The second cup goes into her mum’s hands, and then Siobhan climbs onto the couch near Seb’s feet, which he pulls up to make room for her. Jim leans over and drops two cubes of sugar into her tea, movements slightly jerky. 

Damn.

He sighs, and straightens up, cradling his cup (the liquid just touched with milk, the way he likes it) but getting ready to swallow it down or hand it back to Siobhan if the need arises. Jim scowls at him and turns his back—not just on Sebastian but on both of them, which makes Siobhan lift her head in a sharp intent movement. Her dark brown eyes flicker to her dad, maybe not worried but concerned. And almost—measuring. 

“Sit with us, Jim.” Seb keeps his voice calm and casual; Siobhan’s eyelids drop just the tiniest bit, like he’s made some sort of error. “Scoot up, Bhan, give your mum some room.”

Neither she nor Jim moves for a few seconds and then Jim makes a short hiss and shakes himself. He swirls the tea in his cup once, and then twice, the liquid not quite slopping over the edge. Siobhan presses her toes against the line of Sebastian’s shin, alternating pressure between her feet until Jim says, glittering with cold humor, “We _really_ should get you to a doctor, Sebby darling. Here’s me, thinking your thick skull was going to _prevent_ this sort of memory loss, and now—”

Siobhan shifts her weight so that she’s no longer leaning against Seb, almost before he registers that she’d touched him without him having to initiate it. Something in him lifts with triumph, with what he thinks is love, even as he watches Jim’s eyes going lizardlike. He wants to cup the back of her head in return, or pick her up; but like a half-wild cat Siobhan is the one decides the limits of their interactions.

“Knock it off.” Sebastian takes a long sip of tea, watching him over the rim. “My memory’s fine.” 

“Clearly _not_.” Jim rocks up onto the balls of his feet, then back down to his heels. “Third Sunday in Lent darling, doesn’t that ring a _bell?”_

Sebastian looks blank. “Fuck, Jimmy, the hell do I know about it? Da was C of E but it never took with me or the girls, you know that.”

Jim makes a derogatory sound and then drawls, “Not _religion,_ Sebby. Nice and secular.” A brief pause, then he rolls his eyes and drums his fingers lightly against the teacup, skin nearly as pale as the good china. Siobhan slides off the couch in the same moment that Jim says, “Mother’s Day. And aren’t I a _terribly_ good mother?”

“Uh.” Seb finds he has very little to say that is in any way diplomatic. Siobhan begins to sidle out of the room, and he feels obscurely grateful to his daughter’s increasing sensitivity to situations that could turn dangerous. Jim doesn’t even look round as she goes out the door, and Sebastian rubs his lower lip with the ball of his thumb. 

“Well?” One perfect eyebrow goes up, and Seb tries to stall by taking another sip—Jim leans forward and plucks the teacup from his hand. Sebastian scrubs his freed hand through his hair, and says, politic, “Sure, Jimmy. For never having done it before you’re doin’ fine.”

Jim purses his lips and lifts the other eyebrow. “Then forgetting my _special_ _day_ is a bit unforgivable, don’t you think? Not to even mention inadvisable.”

Sebastian has no answer to that, or at least not right away; and silence has always cost him dearly. There’s a _tink_ as Jim sets down his cup, and a soft noise of bare feet against carpet as he steps forward. 

“Mum?”

Both of them turn to look at her. She’s standing in the doorway with something in both hands cradled up against her thin chest, an expression on her face Sebastian has never seen before. Jim moves towards her by a stride or two and she steps to meet him, leaving a foot of space between their intent, narrow bodies. 

“This is for you.” Her voice is a little abrupt. Like she’s not sure. She puts out her hands and Sebastian, watching Jim instead of Siobhan, sees his face go strange. Almost proud, not quite startled. Seb looks, and then stands to look closer, not quite believing what’s lying in her small palms.

“Did you do this, pet?” Jim’s voice is soft, and he reaches to brush his fingertips over the delicate intermix of wire and feathers, the little brown bird with its head lolling broken-necked. Siobhan nods, and he says, “How?”

“I watched how dad did the rabbit snares.” She sounds faintly hesitant. “And I modified it, because birds are quicker, and some of them are smarter, and they move differently.” She gestures, small, with the hand holding the wire-and-wood part of the snare. “It almost didn’t work. I had to wait _ages_ after baiting the snare, and maybe string next time, not wire. Quicker pull. Less stiff.” Her voice goes very professional for the last few words, and detached, then it goes back to hesitance. “I wanted to skin it for you. I didn’t know how.” 

Jim picks up the bird with great gentleness, spreading one wing and examining the way it articulates. He doesn’t say anything at first, and then he refolds the wing, strokes his knuckle against the keelbone, and adjusts the body in his palm until it might have died quietly, save the wire tight around its neck. 

“We’ll teach you,” he says, finally, and leans down to press his lips against her hair.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Snare](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6546709) by [trickybonmot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickybonmot/pseuds/trickybonmot)




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